


To The Lighthouse

by lisachan



Series: Leoverse [23]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6143028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he started to understand what love was and how it worked, Alex had always believed he'd have ended up with Timmy. They seemed destined, somehow, he had faith that, despite spending half his life bouncing back and forth from him to his "official" girlfriend back in Lima, in the end Timmy would've seen the light, and he'd have recognized he could only be happy with him.<br/>Unfortunately, that didn't happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story is a spin-off sequel for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that, despite not being properly set after BHS (but that's only because BHS is probably never going to have a proper ending and we'll keep talking about these people forever), it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.  
> In addition to that, this is an horrible, dreadful what if? in which in the end Alex and Timmy didn't get together, because Alex chose Tana (Leo's sister, and the girl he had had a crush upon - in addition with a pretty overcomplicated on-off relationship - for several years). No one is happy in this universe. NO ONE. (Well, no, that's a lie. Actually, the universe is pretty much alright, cos Leo and Blaine are pretty much alright. But Alex and Timmy, no, they're not alright at all, and my little black heart aches for them.)

Ever since he was a little boy, Timmy’s always been the lighthouse towards which he was supposed to be sailing.

No matter how rough things got between them, and no matter how hard the crossing seemed, Alex kept looking at him, making him the light to guide him through the night. Sometimes it got dark, and sometimes it got grim, but Timmy, despite everything, flaws and all, was always the beacon shining his way, pointing out the road towards the mainland. As long as he could keep looking at him, as long as he kept being the goal of every effort Alex tried to make, he would have always known he was traveling in the right direction, and that at the end of the day he’d have been happy, ‘cause he’d have had the only thing he possibly could’ve lived without, but didn’t wanna live without anyway.

He still remembers seeing him for the first time. Timmy was older than him, bolder too. He seemed to have close to no preoccupations at all, which was quite striking for Alex, because he already knew, though not in details, that Timmy’s family had gone through a lot before finding its balance, and it seemed amazing, to him, that a kid coming from such struggle could still be so happy.

And yet Timmy was. He wasn’t excessively sociable and he had questionable ideas on what could be considered fun, and pretty much all his hobbies – which mainly included sports, other sports and sports Alex didn’t even know existed – seemed to Alex a little dull, certainly things that wouldn’t have helped him pass the time happily in any way, but still, his enthusiasm was contagious, and whenever he tried explaining the rules, or how to play, he managed to make it so interesting, making jokes and showing Alex what those rules translated into on a practical level, that Alex couldn’t help getting caught up in it, and though he mostly failed, he always tried, which Timmy seemed to appreciate even more than he would’ve appreciated if he had actually succeeded in playing the right way.

To Alex, such a lighthearted way of thinking was completely alien. He hadn’t been through half the struggle, and yet he could’ve never hoped to face life with the same kind of serenity. He was always overthinking things, getting obsessed with problems the very moment they made themselves known. He was never able to face anything in a simple way, he had to overcomplicate things to be in his natural element.

Timmy, on the other hand, always seemed to make everything extremely simple. Despite being a pretty complicated person himself.

But that, Alex had only learned knowing him better over the years.

Timmy’s mind is extremely peculiar, if Alex didn’t know it’s a direct product of his upbringing he’d dare say it even unique. For the most part of his life he’s moved back and forth from him and his on-and-off girlfriend, Santana. This never seemed to bother him, it never bothered him to spend all his summers glued to Alex, sharing each and every moment with him, down to the air they breathed – more often than not from each other’s lips – and then go back to Lima and to her as if nothing had ever happened. His brain didn’t see the faulty logic in it, it was perfectly normal, to him, to put everything about Alex in a box and forget about him entirely as he spent winter with his girlfriend, and then play as if nothing ever happened with him and Tana whenever she broke up with him – which happened often; every time, really – and he could consider himself free to go back to Alex.

Any other person in the same situation would’ve suffered some sort of mental breakdown, at some point. You can’t dance between two people so different, two relationships so at odds with one another, for so many years, without suffering any consequence about it. But not Timmy. To him, it simply made sense. He felt pushed and pulled in both directions, he didn’t want to say no to either of them, and this was the only way he could think to make it work. He was extremely relaxed about it, firmly believing that at some point the right answer would’ve made itself known to him with no problem, and such calm never ceased to have a relaxing effect on Alex too. Since Timmy believed everything would’ve gone for the best in the end, Alex believed it too.

He shouldn’t have.

“It’s so nice to see you,” Timmy says, his voice light as a feather, practically ephemeral, “I wasn’t expecting your call,” his eyes fixed on the road up ahead – he hasn’t thoroughly looked at him once since they met at the airport.

He wasn’t expecting to call him either, but he couldn’t help it. Once he realized he would’ve been in the USA to meet with his parents soon, he just had to call him – to try and see him. It’s been five years since the last time. Since Timmy looked at him with a smile on his face and told him he had asked Tana to be his wife, and she had said yes. At the very end of their last summer together. 

“I’m sorry to impose,” he says, looking down at his own hands, firmly closed around the handle of his bag, squeezing it hard enough to hear the leather creak, “I’ll be gone tomorrow morning, I promise. I just needed a brief pit stop before going to my parents. Their farm is a bit far away from the city, it takes four to five hours to get there and with this weather…”

“Yeah, I know,” Timmy chuckles, amused, “We were there last week, dad dragged us there. When he decides it’s been long enough since he last saw your father, he can’t be stopped, he has to go see him. We always tend to move in group around him, so we can stop him from jumping on poor Cody if he loses control over his sense of decency.”

“Is it still that hard, for him?” Alex answers with a bitter smile, looking out at the road sliding fast underneath the car.

“I doubt it’s ever going to get any easier!” Timmy answers lightheartedly, “But I guess your dad tends to have that effect on people, doesn’t he? Once he’s been yours, even for a moment, you can’t just drop him, ever.”

Contrary to what happened to him, apparently.

“You can stay as long as you want, anyway,” Timmy adds. His voice sounds sweeter, somehow. Alex tries not to listen. “Tana’s in New York, she won’t be back for a week or more. I hate to be alone in the house. You could keep me company.”

“If you need company, you could get a dog,” he answers harshly, refusing to look at him.

Timmy scoffs some sort of sorrowful laughter that makes Alex’s heart shrink and ache. “Tana doesn’t really like pets,” he says.

He sounds so sad. How does he deal with such sadness? How does he deal with it, knowing _he chose her_ , that he could’ve had _him_ , that he could’ve been happy, and that he refused such happiness running carelessly after a childish dream – the dream of the perfect girl he had been following stubbornly since he was but a little boy?

He knows he couldn’t. He couldn’t deal with it. (He knows, because he’s faced with that knowledge every day of his life.)

And yet he’s the last person who could lecture someone else over following childish dreams. Isn’t that what he’s been doing too? He’s been following Timmy, the lighthouse he represented for him, hoping following him would result in a safe docking ashore.

Instead, it’s led him to a wreckage he hasn’t been able to emerge from yet.

“So?” Timmy asks, finally turning to look at him after he parks in the driveway and turns the engine off, “Will you stay?”

Alex bites at his inner cheek, trying to concentrate on the physical pain – it’s better than to concentrate on the invisible one.

“We’ll see,” he answers vaguely.

He walks through the door of Timmy and Tana’s house as if he was crossing the gates of a personal hell.


End file.
